MOSCOW, May 5. In the Ukrainian laboratory in the Kherson region, research was carried out in the interests of the Pentagon, in particular, strains capable of cause epidemics, Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, head of the Radiation Chemical and Biological Protection Troops (RCBZ), told reporters on Friday.
According to him, last week, specialists from the RF Ministry of Defense, together with employees of the FSB and the Rosselkhoznadzor, examined the territory of the biosphere reserve named after. Falz-Fein in the village of Askania-Nova (Kherson region). Specialists studied the documents seized from the archive of the veterinary laboratory of this organization, which confirm the selection and transfer abroad of biological material obtained from migratory birds by the employees of the reserve until 2022.
«The main objectives of the research carried out in Askania-Nova were to collect and transfer to the customer — the US military department — strains of especially dangerous and economically significant infections, to study their possible impact on the biological situation in the region, as well as to determine the ability of selected pathogens to cause large-scale outbreaks among people, according to analogy with the pandemic of a new coronavirus infection,» Kirillov said.
At the same time, generally accepted biosafety standards and the requirements of basic international documents on the selection and transportation of pathogenic biomaterials were ignored.
«I would like to emphasize once again that the Pentagon's steps to expand its military-biological presence in various regions of the world significantly increase the level of biothreats,» Kirillov stressed.
He called for an independent international investigation into the facts of US military biological activities in connection with the scale of dual-use projects implemented by the States and the global biological risks they pose.